Promised huge returns on Bitcoin and USDT trades, a Gwalior chartered accountant ended up losing Rs 21.05 crore instead.

A 70-year-old chartered accountant from Gwalior is said to have lost Rs 21.05 crore to cybercriminals. A woman identifying herself as financial expert Divya Singh messaged Ashok Vijayvargiya on WhatsApp in December 2025. She emailed him a link to open an online trading account and convinced him to invest in cryptocurrency trading, including Bitcoin and USDT.

Following his registration, Vijayvargiya started getting calls from people urging him to buy Bitcoin and USDT. By claiming to have made enormous profits from cryptocurrency trading, the con artists were able to win his faith. Additionally, they credited his bank account with Rs 1.88 lakh as profit, which encouraged him to make bigger investments in what was purportedly a fraudulent trading platform.

Fraudsters pretending to be trading platform operators wanted Rs 10.84 crore in taxes when Vijayvargiya later attempted to withdraw his capital. Divya allegedly persuaded him to pay Rs 5.34 crore when he got in touch with her, promising to cover the remaining sum herself.

Fraudsters pretending to be trading platform operators wanted Rs 10.84 crore in taxes when Vijayvargiya later attempted to withdraw his capital. Divya allegedly persuaded him to pay Rs 5.34 crore when he got in touch with her, promising to cover the remaining sum herself.

When he attempted to withdraw the money a few weeks later, the scammers demanded 2 lakh USDT, or more than Rs 1.92 crore, as risk margin money. Vijayvargiya felt he had been duped after talking to friends and clients about it. He filed a complaint with the Madhya Pradesh State Cyber Police's Gwalior zonal section, which opened a case under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and the Information Technology Act, 2008.